


The Great Connection

by fightthefry



Series: Various Harry Potter Stories [2]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Sorry not sorry folks but thats just the way it is, Yule ball is called Beltane Ball and its in April
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 20:50:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20784908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightthefry/pseuds/fightthefry
Summary: There are those moments in life wherein your breath shorts and your chest heaves with gasps that don’t make it out. Those moments where your hair stands so fair up on end, that it goes back down the other way. Those moments where, despite all logic and reasoning, you can’t help but scream.But Harry felt only anger, as he grasped Tom Riddle and swum to the surface.





	The Great Connection

“Welcome, one and all, to the second task of the Triwizard Tournament!” The speaker boomed, wand to throat, vibrations caressing the ground below and rippling the lake into large crescents.

The calm antiquity that radiated from Hogwarts castle washed over the water, grey feathers tickling the air as clouds culminated overhead. Wind bristled hair, and burned skin, the cold and crisp gale of Februarys past blowing together as one to greet the students as they huddled for warmth under the lacklustre shades.

Harry Potter was colder though. Too nervous to cast a warming charm, too jittery to think past the swirling waters below him. He could vaguely hear the chatter of anticipation behind him, however his own macabre expectancy screeched over them all, the calm boom in his ears roaring to a great halt when the drum pounded, when the bell chimed, when the gong sounded.

And then he was in.

Gillyweed did naught to prepare him for the shock of the water. He hadn’t expected it to, in all honesty, but he could all but hope.

The current wrapped around him like a snake, not exactly choking him, but waterboarding him in a perverted game of torture. Harry’s feet, newly webbed, kicked rapidly, moving him across the wide expanse of open space, close enough to the surface that he could still hear the muffled words of his peers.

Suddenly a scream echoed near him. Near, but far, too far to do anything about it.

He spotted a quick dash of silver as a swimmer was pulled to the surface, a stream of red following her.

Despite his inner instincts screaming out at him, Harry shook his head. She’s okay now. They’ve got her.

Kicking with everything he had, Harry descended towards the mass of green swill that waved lackadaisically in the soft push of the water. Screams of anguish and curiosity washed throughout the weed, inhuman chitters and clicks panoramically crawling closer and closer, but at the same time, etching and egging him further and further away.

Sediment floated across Harry’s vision, disturbed from his intrusion, and drifted out towards further nothingness. Towards where he was – thinking! – of going.

Harry’s head was swirling like a rapid, rocks causing splashes of ideas and thoughts that slowed his swimming and sped the river of his mind. Dumbledore’s words acted as fish, feeding the ecosystem of his designs and driving his unbridled passion forwards.

‘_You will find that which you connect most to in the depths of the lake. But be warned, for the connection specifies not whether it be positive or negative, and in the case of the latter, it is of the uttermost import that you pull them from the water, lest you be dragged there too.’_

Actually, now that he was thinking about it, what the hell?

But there was nothing he could do now, as he swum deeper down into the water, towards his ‘great connection’.

-

-

-

There are those moments in life wherein your breath shorts and your chest heaves with gasps that don’t make it out. Those moments where your hair stands so fair up on end, that it goes back down the other way. Those moments where, despite all logic and reasoning, you can’t help but scream.

And Harry would be doing all of those things, if it wasn’t for the fact that he was currently underwater.

Four people tied by the ankle floated in front of him, their faces pale and morbid in the hazy viscosity that surrounded them. Lines that once etched the caves that adorned their faces, worried lines and crow feet; signs of happiness, were gone, replaced by a sickly white hue that blurred their features in a state of uneasy unrest.

A girl, her blonde hair floating perfectly around her small head was bobbing slightly in the middle, small bubbles of air squeezing through the loose purse of her lips as she breathed ever so softly.

Hermione was aloft next to her, noticeable taller, her school robes darkened and drifting around her like a shroud. Her face had taken on a look of peace that was so unlike her, it made Harry physically unwell to look at her.

So, with pained reluctance, he turned.

Cho Chang, similar to the others, was besides Hermione, her straight hair billowing in a cloud and her robes mingling with Hermione’s. The blue trim of her collar was unnoticeable in the water.

Harry could happily leave it there. Those three, the three that it was _supposed _to be. If not for the extra fire, his charred name, Harry wouldn’t be here. Wouldn’t be with _him._

He wouldn’t be here. Harry looked upon the boy.

Curls that were once tamed were pulling away from his head with a blasé determination, his white skin almost darkened by the tint of the water. Similarly, school robes also encased him like an open tomb, but the old furbelow of his vest was a little too pulled, and coarse, and the colour was off, even in the distortion that surrounded them. His tie, green and putrid, reached out to Harry like Death’s arm, its singular finger pointing in abhorrent divination to his future.

Such a dilemma had never presented itself before Harry, such a range of choices presented before him.

Harry looked at Lord Voldemort, face youthful and angelic – _a fiend angelical! – _and utterly juxtaposing the marred and mangled insides of his Machiavellian mind.

His first thought was to leave. Leave him her amongst the merpeople and the grindelows and the squid – and maybe, if he was lucky enough, giant squids were carnivores – but the thought was quickly jutted from his mind with the calm yet stern voice of Albus Dumbledore.

_“It is of the uttermost import that you pull them from the water, lest you be dragged there too.”_

Harry pondered, his face cool but his hands warm with the flitting of his fingers.

_‘They won’t really blame you, if you left him down here, would they?’_

He had to admit, he had a good point.

_‘But Dumbledore would know that he was here and would certainly have told you if you were exempt to the rules,’ _A crueller, more snide voice whispered from deep inside his head, a counter argument that made more sense and seemed smug whilst doing so.

Nose wrinkled, the cogs in Harry’s head spun with such velocity that they threatened to drive themselves through his eye sockets, adding to the pain that was sparking through one of them.

_‘Has Dumbledore ever made any sense?’_

Shaking the voices and their quarrel from his mind, Harry grasped his wand, the incantation buzzing through his mind.

And, perhaps against his better judgement, out it came.

A red jet of light cut through the water and scattered the merpeople that, unbeknownst to Harry, had been lurking in the weeds nearby, and cut clean through the rope that had been holding both Riddle and the little girl, the remnants of Fleur’s scream bringing itself forth in his mind at just the final second.

And, also against his better judgement, Harry hooked his arm around theirs, and kicked towards the surface.


End file.
